Zen Master

For Gabriel Stricker, Twitter’s VP of marketing and communications, the decision to keep the PR around its IPO in-house is an extension of a philosophy that underpins the team he’s built.

“I think it makes perfect sense to bring in agencies for extending your reach and that’s why we absolutely use agencies internationally because there are places where we don’t have coverage,” Stricker says. “What I generally don’t believe in is outsourcing core competency.”

Taking that approach, since Stricker took the helm of Twitter’s comms in 2012, its PR team “has grown by an order of magnitude.” Among the team are Jim Prosser and Karen Wickre who played a notable role in the IPO. Stricker declined to cite a figure, but it’s estimated that Twitter’s comms team has about 20 people globally.

“We’re still small and scrappy,” Stricker says. Earlier this year, Twitter’s nascent marketing team was consolidated under Stricker, and while this function is still in its infancy, he calls marketing and comms “totally integrated.”

No doubt, Stricker’s comms track record runs deep — prior to Twitter, he worked at Google, as well as holding senior posts at Weber Shandwick and FTI Consulting. Yet, when it comes to marketing he brings a vision that– like his approach to PR — is intriguingly Zen, in theory, anyway.

“My philosophy has always been one of integrated marketing and comms,” Stricker, who’s penned a book on guerilla marketing tactics in the boardroom, says. “And it so happens Twitter’s ubiquity has always been a consequence of viral growth — and the question is now — are there ways to complement that with consumer marketing?”

In the full Q&A, Stricker breaks down his marketing and communications philosophy — and talks about the thinking behind Twitter’s successful IPO last month. (It should be noted, while Google also largely eschews PR agencies North America, Stricker was not directly involved in that decision.)